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Month: September 2016

So tonight, there was an absolutely huge thunderstorm in the Manchester-ish area. It was huge, chucked it down with rain and huge rolls of thunder battered the north-west coast. It was so damn big, it made the news. I was still at work when I heard a huge thunder crack, so I rushed home, grabbed my recorder and captured what I could.

It rained heavily for about an hour, with constant thunder and lighting throughout. At one point (and I kid you not), lighting stuck something outside my room. I’m not sure what exactly it struck, or how close to me it actually was, but it was damn loud. Sadly i’d turned my recorder off by that point. (doh).

I put my recorder by my window (I did think about running out into the rain and crouching somewhere with the recorder, but after a little deliberation, I decided I wasn’t that bothered about soaking myself to get a great recording). The result of it being by the window is some slightly weird reflections, but it sounds okay. The thunder is a relatively broadband noise anyway, and it shows up well despite the un-ideal mic positioning. Here’s a few exciting moments below:

That’s the lot for now! Forgot to take pictures.. So I used one from the other week when I recorded some rain from my window. Rain’s all the same.

Hello! Just a quick one, posting some audio I recorded a few months ago now that I really need to do something with. I have had an incredibly fun and exciting month or so, and all will most likely be explained in the next blog. But for now, here’s some cool bits I recorded while I was at home in summer!

So a friend of mine owns a 1000cc Honda CBR and a fancy Jaguar, and and considering these aren’t necessarily vehicles I might have everyday access to, I decided to grab some quick recordings. I was very limited in my equipment choices at this point, and considering the source, I probably could have gone for a far better setup – but I figured i’d make use of what I had to hand. I had my two portable recorders – the tascam DR-05 and DR-100, which I used to capture the bike and car from different perspectives. I recorded both vehicles whilst stationary, so I was able to carefully place the recorders in the best positions to capture a good sound.

For the Honda, I put the DR-05 by the exhaust, and the DR-100 right next to the engine itself. The bike was incredibly loud – louder than i’d anticipated – and the pre-amps got a bit battered. The recording didn’t necessarily distort, but it did.. saturate, a little. You can hear the force of the exhaust pumping the diaphragms in the DR-05 mics in the recording below, with the engine mic mixed in also. Despite having some wind protection on the mics too, they still struggled a bit under the weight of the air and sound waves being produced by the bike. This is raw from the recorder, and may also be a little loud.

Next was the Jaguar, an XF. The sound wasn’t actually that amazing, as it turned out to be more of a luxury car, rather than any kind of sport type thing. I still set my mics up and recorded the engine, and got some cool results.

I put the DR-100 on the engine, and the DR-05 on the exhaust. The car wasn’t as loud as the bike, but it still had some give to it. I combined the two positions together and cut out two little clips to demonstrate different engine states, below. These are raw from the recorder.